


Plaits of Sea Kraits

by kurage_hime



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Metamorphoses - Ovid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, No Dialogue, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 04:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14229663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurage_hime/pseuds/kurage_hime
Summary: Now, when she looked at her reflection on the surface of the ocean’s glassy blue-green waters, she imagined that the plaits piled high on her head had become a writhing mass of sea kraits.





	Plaits of Sea Kraits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Port](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/gifts).



Medusa was no proverbial God on Mount Olympus. Not like Poseidon, no, not like Athena.

Her origins were humble; she and her sisters had grown up in a small, impoverished fishing village in Bangladesh. As far as she was aware, the village had never been named on any map. Not until one day, that is, when, on a whim, Medusa had talked her way into an hour on a computer at an internet cafe and added it to Google Earth herself.

No, she hadn’t been born into privilege, but she had believed that it wouldn’t matter.

She had ambition, and she was smart. While her father took the boat out past the reefs and her mother and sisters gutted and filleted an entire ocean’s worth of fish, Medusa went to school.

Her family’s hard work paid for all of her textbooks.

She’d had only two advantages to her name: She knew how to swim even before she’d known how to walk, and she wasn’t scared of the sea kraits. She watched those beautiful, blue and black-banded snakes with the oar-like tails, and she touched them. They never bit her. After a while, they divulged all of their secrets.

When the most prestigious university in the world conferred upon her the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Medusa paid the way for everyone in her family to attend the graduation ceremony.

 

* * *

 

She beat out over five-hundred candidates for her first research position at the Pallas Institute of Oceanography and Marine Biology.

A permanent appointment, 1.0 FTE. Total academic freedom. It was a dream come true. No, it was _better_ than a dream come true because even the most ambitious young postdocs rarely dared to aim so high.

But Medusa had reached for the heavens above, and at the rate she was going, she’d be a luminary in her field herself before long.

So what if most of her departmental colleagues were the wives of famous researchers and not famous in their own rights? Not everyone could be a proverbial God of the Oceans. And those women were still good at their jobs, and they were fun to be around.

Medusa was where she was thanks to her own achievements – she was very proud of that fact – and she figured it made her a better researcher. She, unlike the wives, didn’t need to rely on anybody for her career.

Besides, the Institute had just recruited two superstars:

Professor Poseidon, who would be Medusa’s line manager and Head of Department. No one knew more about maritime history and policy.

And Professor Athena, the eminent feminist scientist who had shifted whole paradigms with her research. Medusa had read about her and her many achievements back in that one-room schoolhouse in Bangladesh.

The future was bright. So bright.

 

* * *

 

Until it wasn’t.

She’d thought this was a meritocracy, and that her hard-won achievements whilst unmarried and alone made her strong. They didn’t, though. They just made her uniquely vulnerable.

They weren’t real researchers, those wives. How could she have known? But she found out soon enough: They were stealing her field data and publishing it as their own. They took her hard, honest labour, and they turned it into fame and acclaim for themselves.

It was plagiarism; she was sure it was wrong. So, she went to Professor Poseidon to plead her case. He had integrity, and he had power, and he was their line manager as well as hers; surely he would do _something_!

He did do something. He told her that she wasn’t being a team player, and until she learned how to be a team player, she would be restricted to desk projects.

Her life’s work was with the sea kraits, and she had been forbidden to go out on dives! Her career was going to die – stillborn.

She felt like the core of who she was had been assaulted. Oh, how she missed swimming with her snakes!

But Medusa was smart. Maybe too smart?

Because then she discovered that she wasn’t even the first to have her research stolen.

She was the fifth.

 

* * *

 

Medusa told her story. She pointed fingers, demanded redress for herself and those who had come before her. There were too many – too many! – whom these Gods from on High had sucked dry and wantonly cast aside.

As always, it was the victim who was put on trial. They attempted to impugn her work, but there was no flaw to be found. She was a world-leading expert on sea kraits, and every herpetologist and marine biologist they asked to speak out against her flatly refused.

So, they impugned the integrity of her character instead. She was a creature of low breeding, they said, no better than a whore. Her parents were nobodies, her sisters were monsters, and as for Medusa? Well obviously she was a monster too. It was insane.

Medusa fought every allegation, and she lost.

Professor Athena was the first to turn away from her. That betrayal hurt worst.

Oh, how wrong she had been. The wives mattered, but she did not. They had something valuable to contribute, and if that value was between their legs and not their ears…ha! And they called _Medusa_ the whore…! All her hard work, all for nought. Her life as she knew it, destroyed.

She had always been a nobody; she would always be a nobody; and as soon as they were able, they sacked her with impunity.

 

* * *

 

There was no research institute in the world that would hire her after that. Why bother taking on one so damaged when there were five-hundred more eager, pliable,  _virgin_  postdocs waiting in the wings?

She’d become untouchable. The people she’d called her colleagues, the people she’d thought were her friends, refused to look her in the eye. As long as they didn’t have to look at her, their careers were safe.

Or so they believed.

But she knew these accursed wrongs would outlive her. They were as hard and intractable as stone, and even after she died, she’d still be blamed.

Either that, or Professor Athena would turn her into some sort of faux-feminist cause. She refused to save Medusa the Woman. But Medusa the Myth? Ah, now _that_ was a different thing altogether. Medusa made for a great story, and her face would fly high on Athena’s banner: The Female Scientist Wronged.

As for Medusa the Woman, she returned to her family’s village in Bangladesh. There was no other option left available to her. The village hadn’t changed: It was still impoverished and dependent upon the fickle bounty of the sea. The only difference was that now it had a name on every map that counted. Medusa had done that.

At least her mother and father would always be there for her, and her sisters cooed and clucked and brushed and braided her long hair.

And she wasn’t afraid of the ocean or its snakes.

She still swam with them. She wished she could _be_ them.

Now, when she looked at her reflection on the surface of the ocean’s glassy blue-green waters, she imagined that the plaits piled high on her head had become a writhing mass of sea kraits.


End file.
